Tag: romance

fiction

Book Review: Miracles and Menorahs by Stacey Agdern

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Representation matters. By now, anyone with half a brain understands this. It’s nice to be able to see parts of who we are on screen, in the pages of a book, in whatever media we consume. I always enjoy learning of new (or new-to-me; I’m often behind in just about everything) Jewish fiction, because seeing characters casually discuss the same holidays I celebrate, or approaching a difficult situation with a mindset they learned from the Jewish influences in their lives just makes my heart sing. I was happy to learn about Miracles and Menorahs by Stacey Agdern (Tule Publishing Group, 2020), and even happier to find it on the shelves of my library.

Sarah Goldman is second in command on the board of her small town’s Hanukkah festival (yup, you read that right!), a tradition that’s been going on for many years, but some people in the town want changes. More red, more green, more trees…boy, is this sounding familiar. But Sarah’s determined to keep the festival all Hanukkah, and for that, she’s going to need something special, like a giant menorah (how they didn’t already have one of these already kind of baffled me…). But where could she possibly find one of those so late in the game?

Enter Isaac Lieberman, metal artist and grandson of one of the town’s most beloved members. He’s single, good-looking, talented…and 100% against any kind of commercialization of Hanukkah, so making a giant menorah for Sarah’s festival is definitely not on his list of priorities. Bummer. But as he and Sarah spend more time together and Isaac gets to know the town where his bubbe lives, he may just change his mind…about a lot of things.

This is a very sweet Hanukkah romance – there’s no more action than a few chaste kisses, so if you avoid anything hotter than a bell pepper, you’ll be okay picking up Miracles and Menorahs. It’s basically a Hallmark movie in book form.

The ups: Jewish representation. SO much rep. Most of the town is Jewish (which makes a few of the board members cranky to suddenly find their holiday in the minority; the whole situation is shades of @JewWhoHasItAll on Twitter, a great follow!), and Jewish foods and rituals are discussed without needing much explanation, which is pretty awesome. I love seeing that in books. The small town is, for the most part, incredible in the way that small towns only are in books (I’m from a small town. In reality, it’s snobbery, gossip, arrogance, bigotry, hypocrisy, and hatred with a cute downtown. It breaks my heart, really), and the bookstore where Sarah works is charming.

The downs: I wanted to like this a lot more than I did. I found the writing a bit stilted, there wasn’t nearly enough action to keep me interested, and I felt like the book could have benefitted from a stronger editor (overuse of certain words, stronger action, heavier on the drama). What drama did exist in the book felt…boring, some of it (Isaac’s mother, especially) felt overdone and a little unrealistic, and to be honest, I had a hard time finishing the book. I will say that I prefer my fiction to be written in first-person; this is written in third, and I have a harder time connecting to that, so some of my issues connecting with this book are definitely mine, because plenty of other people have enjoyed it.

Miracles and Menorahs is part of a series. I’m disappointed that I don’t feel enough of a connection to the book or the characters to continue on with the other books, but if this sounds like something you’re interested in picking up, you’re in luck that there are several books beyond this one.

Visit Stacey Agdern’s website here.

Follow her on Twitter here.

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fiction · YA

Book Review: Who I Was With Her by Nita Tyndall

Stephanie2 Comments

Secret time!

In high school, I had a terrible, terrible crush on this guy. It wasn’t something anyone really knew about; while we later became friends due more to circumstance than anything, I couldn’t even speak to him, couldn’t hardly look at him, my anxiety was so terrible. But hoooooooooo boy, did I like him, for years. And, because anxiety is so much fun, my brain worried about how I would cope if the unthinkable happened and he died. How would I manage my grief since no one knew how much I had liked him? How would I get through daily life carrying all that pain that no one had any reason to suspect I had? When I heard about the premise of Who I Was with Her by Nita Tyndall (HarperTeen, 2020), I gasped; someone had written my book, or a version of it! Immediately it went onto my TBR.

Who I Was with Her starts off with a moment of shock: Maggie is dead, a fact Corinne overhears from her cross country teammates, and which throws her into a full-blown nightmare, because Maggie was her girlfriend, a girlfriend no one knew she had. They’d been dating for a year, and, living in the south, Corinne hadn’t been comfortable coming out. She’d already had a lot on her plate, adjusting to living in a new place, her newly divorced parents, her alcoholic mother. Adding her community’s homophobia onto the pile felt like it was too much, so Corinne kept her bisexuality and Maggie under wraps.

But now Maggie is gone and Corinne’s grief is all-encompassing, but what do you do with grief no one knows you have? As Corinne begins to navigate life without Maggie, she gets to know Maggie’s brother and her ex-girlfriend (an ex Corinne had no idea existed), and she begins to confront some hard truths about who she is, what she wants, and what it takes to live authentically.

What a sad, heavy book, one that I’m so glad exists. Corinne is a complicated character; she has a lot going on in her life, and she doesn’t always make the best decisions, for herself or for others, but the decisions she makes are entirely understandable, given the context of what she’s been through the past few years. At times she can be selfish, but that’s what happens when your emotional needs aren’t taken into consideration by your parents; you’re forced to focus on yourself in order to survive. I dealt with some similar issues to Corinne when I was in high school and it still affects me to this day, so Corinne absolutely resonated with me.

The grief in this book is nearly tangible. Compound that with college stress, parent stress, school stress, sports stress, friend-group drama, and you have a main character who by all means should have been on the edge of a complete breakdown, but she does her best to hold it together, with not-always great outcomes. The book ends on a hopeful note; Maggie is obviously gone and never coming back, but Corinne has learned about herself, learned to advocate for herself, and has learned to be more honest, and she’s set for a better future. The pain is still there, but she has more tools to handle it, and the strong writing carries this to a bittersweet conclusion.

Who I Was with Her is a raw, honest book, one that I thoroughly enjoyed.

Visit Nita Tyndall’s website here.

Follow them on Twitter here.

fiction · YA

Book Review: What I Like About You by Marisa Kanter

Stephanie5 Comments

YA about a book blogger? And she’s Jewish??? SERIOUSLY?!?!?? Sign. Me. Up. I was into the idea of What I Like About You by Marisa Kanter (Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2020) the moment I learned about it. Because of the pandemic, it’s taken me this long to get to it, but y’all…this was worth the wait. I wasn’t even halfway through when I put Ms. Kanter’s next book, As If On Cue, on my TBR. Her storytelling, her writing style, I loved it all. This is a FABULOUS book and one of the best YA novels I’ve read in a long time.

Halle Levitt is a book blogger, the creator of the well-known One True Pastry, where she pairs YA books with superbly baked and decorated cupcakes (made by Halle, of course). But she blogs under the name of Kels Roth, because Halle Levitt was the granddaughter of well-known YA book editor Miriam Roth. If Halle had started blogging under her own name, she never would have known if any eventual success was hers alone or it came because of her name. As Kels, Halle, who is shy and socially awkward, finally has a group of friends she connects with for the first time, including her best friend, Nash, a graphic novel aficionado and artist.

Grams is gone now, and Halle and her brother have moved in with Gramps while their documentary-making parents are off to Israel for the year. And on her first day in town, Halle is horrified to run into none other than Nash, who has no idea she’s the Kels he’s been talking to for years. As she gets to know the real Nash and gets involved with his friend group, things get more and more complicated and she moves further and further away from being able to tell Nash the truth about her double life. But as Kels’s success grows and her opportunities for in-person events expand, Halle knows she’s going to have to come clean. Especially when Nash starts to fall for her.

OMG, this was SO good. Book bloggers! Jewish rep! Authors behaving badly! I’m absolutely shocked that so many people on Goodreads missed the ENTIRE point of the author-behaving-badly subplot. YA is written for teens. It just is. I enjoy it as an adult, but I realize I’m not the primary target audience and that’s FINE. The YA author in the book being a jerk and acting like her book was too good to be considered YA is an unfortunate page out of real life; as book bloggers, we’ve all come into contact with stories like this, where authors talk down to their audience and insult them. It’s a tough thing to deal with, especially if the art they create is something that speaks so completely to us. That there are so many reviews that don’t seem to understand what that subplot was about shocks me (though, given the state of the world and how badly people misinterpret just about everything, I probably shouldn’t be so surprised…).

Halle is a great character. She’s cute, funny, smart, creative, and awkward in ways that we all remember being (or, uh, still are…). She’s doing the best she can with what she has, and things are tough for her, what with the loss of her grandmother still fresh, and all the stress of college next year. Her reasons for starting One True Pastry under a pseudonym are entirely understandable, and her constant panic about how to tell Nash is realistic. Her brother Oliver provides the voice of reason in this situation, and her real-life friend group is supportive but doesn’t let her off the hook.

Nash is sweet, funny, a little irritating in his devotion to Kels at times, but overall, a great YA love interest. Halle/Kels’s online friends are fun but spare no punches, just like the real-life friends; they’re supportive and enthusiastic about Kels’s success, but they also demand accountability from her (would that we all had friends like this!). Gramps starts off a little harsh; his grief is still raw and he’s not doing well, but his slow return to the land of the living is satisfying and emotionally fulfilling. And the Jewish rep? ON POINT. There are a lot of scenes here set at synagogue; Halle and her brother have never attended, so the reader is able to learn what’s going on right along with them. There are also other scenes set during holiday celebrations, and various Shabbat observance levels are discussed. It’s all fabulous and made me feel right at home.

This is a GREAT book, and I absolutely cannot wait to read more from Marisa Kanter.

Visit Marisa Kanter’s website here.

Follow her on Twitter here.

fiction · romance

Book Review: The Matzah Ball by Jean Meltzer

Stephanie1 Comment

Jewish romance? Yes, please.

Jewish romance where the heroine has chronic medical problems? WHAT?????? SIGN. ME. UP.

Diversity in fiction, which has grown the past decade, means many things, but it’s rare that I see so much of myself in fiction. I’m pretty sure that I learned about The Matzah Ball by Jean Meltzer (MIRA, 2021) from either a list on Twitter or a list on Alma (and of course slapped it directly onto my TBR), but when my friend Sharon mentioned reading it and enjoying it, I knew it had to switch statuses to ‘Currently reading’ soon. And it finally appeared at the library, and I let out a little yelp of joy as I spotted it and yanked it off the shelf. Because I am entirely normal and that is a completely normal way to behave in the library.

Rachel Rubenstein-Goldblatt is carrying a lot of things in her life. The daughter of the well-known Rabbi Goldblatt, her myalgic encephalomyelitis, also known as chronic fatigue syndrome, rules her whole life, from her daily activities to her career. Which…no one knows, but Rachel, Jewish daughter of a famous rabbi, is the woman behind Margot Cross, the bestselling author of a series of Christmas romance novels. Rachel loves Christmas…but no one can know, just as she refuses to let her agent and editors know about her ME/CFS. But there’s a problem: her last few books aren’t selling well. Christmas is out, and diversity is in. Rachel’s team wants her to write a Hanukkah romance. What’s a Jewish Christmas romance novelist with limited physical resources to do?

Enter Jacob Greenberg, Rachel’s camp nemesis and one-time tween boyfriend. He’s now a bigtime millionaire event planner, and he’s swinging back into town to throw the Hanukkah event of the millennium: the Matzah Ball Max. (It doesn’t hurt that he’s single and wayyyyyyyy easy on the eyes.) His attendance at her parents’ Shabbat dinner gives Rachel an in, and she manages to finagle a ticket to the Matzah Ball by – gulp – agreeing to volunteer (with her ME/CFS a constant presence? YIKES). What better way to get the Hanukkah novel inspiration she needs? But Jacob’s reappearance in her life strikes up some feelings – for both of them, and they’ll both have some deep Yom Kippur-style reflection to do if they want to move ahead in their lives…maybe even together.

LOVED THIS.

LOVED THIS SO MUCH!!!!!!!

While my medical issues are different from Rachel’s, I saw so much of myself in this book. The constantly having to tailor your entire life to what your body demands; other people not understanding what’s going on with me medically; love of Judaism; writing. It’s all there, and I felt so represented on almost every page of this! I love that chronic illness is showing up in more and more novels.

Rachel can be blunt and a little brash at times, but she knows what she needs and is a good advocate for herself (and who can blame anyone for dealing with constant pain and fatigue and/or other medical issues and being a little crabby? Well, lots of people, but I digress…). Jacob is a swoonworthy hero. He’s not without his flaws; he’s still grieving the loss of his mother and how his father walked out on the family, and despite his success in life, he still has some growing up and learning to do – about lots of things. He and Rachel make a good fit, and the constant slight pushing from their families to get together only adds to the fun of the story.

I am 100% here for Jean Meltzer’s next novel. Already on my TBR, and I’m poised and waiting. (No pressure. Just excited!) Her writing style is fun and light, serious when it needs to be, but still keeping the overall tone enjoyable and never too serious. It’s exactly what I’m looking for in fiction, and I can’t wait to see what she does next!

Visit Jean Meltzer’s website here.

fiction · romance

Book Review: The Intimacy Experiment (The Roommate #2) by Rosie Danan

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I’m 100% always in the market for good Jewish representation in contemporary fiction, especially romance. There’s not a ton of it, so when I find it, I get pretty excited. That’s how The Intimacy Experiment by Rosie Danan (Berkley Books, 2021) ended up on my TBR. But sometimes books aren’t what we hoped for, and this was one of them. And that’s fine. Not every book is for every reader. Here’s the gist of it.

Naomi Grant is a former professional sex worker, star of many, many adult films, and now head of her own company whose aim is to teach people how to have good sex. Over the years, she’s developed the tough skin necessary for people who work in such a controversial industry. She wants to move into teaching in-person crowds, but no one wants to hire someone who’s known mainly for being in pornography.

Rabbi Ethan Cohen needs to get more people into his struggling synagogue with an aging congregation. What better than to invite a former adult actress to teach a series on modern intimacy? The board will LOVE that!

While Naomi’s series grows in popularity, she and Ethan grow closer, but a rabbi and a porn star becoming a couple? Naomi wouldn’t do that to Ethan’s life and career, and Ethan is wary of placing the demands of his career on anyone. And surprise, the synagogue board isn’t happy about having a porn star teaching classes…

This really didn’t work for me. Naomi’s entire personality is brash, angry, and unpleasant. She was rude even to her friends and co-workers, and while the whole point was that she was defensive and lashed out first before other people could attack her, it made her tiresome to read and I had a hard time believing anyone would enjoy spending any kind of time with her.

Ethan was fine as a character, but I didn’t quite buy his whole, ‘Being a rabbi is too difficult for anyone to marry me!’ shtick; so far, I’ve met one single rabbi, and all the rest have been married. I understand that being married to someone who is clergy isn’t always the easiest position; the hours are constant and it’s incredibly demanding. But for Ethan to act like it’s impossible? Especially as someone who is apparently super attractive and has women throwing themselves at him constantly? Nah. Not buying it.

I liked Ethan’s open-mindedness and his sex-positive attitude (Naomi’s as well, but as she seemed so damn angry about it, it was harder to enjoy anything about her). His gentle pushing of his congregation to be more modern was entirely believable. But overall? I kind of had to push myself in order to get through this, which is a clear sign for me that this book just wasn’t the one for me. It happens. : )

Visit Rosie Danan’s website here.

Follow her on Twitter here.

fiction · New Adult · romance

Book Review: When It’s Real by Erin Watt

Stephanie1 Comment

The celebrity/normal person trope in romance is my absolute favorite. Which is kind of funny; I’m not much of a celebrity watcher at all, so I don’t harbor any fantasies about running away with the current hottie-of-the-month. But there’s just something about this trope that pulls me in, and that’s how When It’s Real by Erin Watt (Harlequin Teen, 2017) ended up on my list. And there it sat until I finally decided to tackle all those ebooks on my list.

Oakley Ford is one of the hottest musicians out there, but he hasn’t come out with an album in a few years. His team decides that not only does he need to keep his name out there, he desperately needs to revamp his bad boy image. Enter Vaughn, the sister of an employee at Oak’s agent’s office. She’ll be perfect as his fake girlfriend- smart, pretty, a fan, and raising her two brothers with her older sister after their parents died in an accident a few years ago (this is a New Adult book; you didn’t think you could get out of a New Adult without some dead parents, did you?). Agreements are made, contracts are drawn and signed, and that’s that: for one year, Oak and Vaughn are legally a thing.

Things are rocky at first; despite being a fan and being super attracted to Oak, Vaughn doesn’t appreciate Oak’s immaturity and his self-centeredness. His fishbowl life doesn’t appeal to her, and it’s hard managing her real-life boyfriend’s whininess about her relationship-for-pay-that-her-family-truly-needs around the demands of her solely-for-show relationship with Oakley. But as the two get to know each other, a different side of Oak emerges, one that’s more mature and more real than what the public has seen so far, and the two begin to fall in love. But can they keep it together?

This was okay. Solid enough. I liked Vaughn. She’s stressed to the max, what with trying to help her older sister (I would’ve enjoyed a book about her!) raise their two younger brothers and deal with all the financial and emotional repercussions of losing their parents so young. She’s trying to figure out what to do with her life and struggling with the demands and pressures of a boyfriend who doesn’t seem to care about anyone other than himself. She felt pretty real.

Oakley…he was immature. Obnoxious. Self-centered. He was better than W, Vaughn’s whiny boyfriend, but he was still way more self-serving in the beginning than I would’ve liked, and he wasn’t someone I would’ve been attracted to, simply because of his attitude. He did grow and improve throughout the novel, thanks to Vaughn, but I would’ve liked to have seen more of those changes come from him, rather than from their relationship.

I felt like their physical relationship- which wasn’t even an actual dating relationship at that point- went from nothing to ‘You’re doing what now???’ out of nowhere. That kind of surprised me and made it feel like this was actually two books smushed together. I felt as though there should have been more build-up to this, rather than throwing it in what felt like randomly.

So this was okay. Not the best New Adult I’ve read, nor the best celebrity/normal person trope, but it was a decent read and I have no regrets.

Visit Erin Watt’s website here.

Follow them on Twitter here.

fiction · romance

Book Review: Rookie Move (Brooklyn Bruisers #1) by Sarina Bowen

Stephanie3 Comments

I love hockey, though I haven’t been able to follow it at all during the pandemic (I have no desire to watch players and fans get COVID in real time, thank you very much). So when Smart Bitches, Trashy Books recommended Sarina Bowen as an author, I decided I wanted to read something of hers and started digging through what my library had to offer. And lo and behold, she had a hockey series! Onto my list went Rookie Move (Brooklyn Bruisers #1) (Berkley, 2016). It took me a while to get to it, though. Thanks to one of my New Year’s resolutions being to finally read all of the ebooks I’d been saving on my TBR, now was the time! (I adore my kindle; the ebooks just got pushed to the side in part because of worries about the library closing again and my needing to save something from my TBR in case that happened. No worries, though; I have a plan if that does go down!)

Georgia’s life is going pretty well these days. She’s the temporary head of PR for Brooklyn’s new hockey team, the Bruisers. She wasn’t quite planning on her father signing on as head coach, but they’re close, so it’s all good. She’s sharing a tiny apartment with a friend she loves. Sure, she hasn’t really dated much at all in the six years since she walked away from her high school love after having survived being raped while on a college tour, but everything else is perfectly fine. Georgia is finally feeling safe in her life.

Enter the team’s newest player, straight from the minor leagues: Leo Trevi, who just so happens to be Georgia’s high school boyfriend. Both are absolutely floored to see each other. Leo’s ready to pick back up where they left off; he never got over Georgia when she dumped him out of the blue six years ago. For Georgia, Leo’s reappearance in her life begins to dredge up old feelings she thought she’d moved past, and she’s not so sure about moving forward with him. But Leo’s patient, and Georgia’s feelings for him aren’t quite as over as she thought.

This is really a great, solid sports romance. Obviously there’s a content warning for rape; the subject comes up often (though never in any kind of detail) and is an integral part of the storyline, so if reading this would be difficult for you, it’s okay to choose another book. Be kind to yourself. Leo is gentle and patient at all times with Georgia; her moving on from him has nothing to do with his reaction to her attack, only her own misinterpretation. Georgia is strong and independent, but she’s lonely and still hurting, though she covers it well.

The romance in this novel absolutely sizzles! WHEW. I was rooting for the two of them the whole way, because they have some serious chemistry. And Sarina Bowen’s writing in the hockey game scenes is utterly top-notch. I was on the edge of my seat and could barely handle reading the tension. Who would win, who would score, the potential for serious injury, it was all perfectly paced and described. Ms. Bowen obviously knows hockey and has talent in spades for letting her love for the sport shine on each page.

This was a fun, fun, FUN book to read, and I’m looking forward to reading more from Sarina Bowen in the future.

Visit Sarina Bowen’s website here.

Follow her on Twitter here.

fiction

Book Review: Miss Jacobson’s Journey by Carola Dunn

Stephanie1 Comment

A while back, I did a search through my library’s card catalog (from home. My older readers, remember when physical card catalogs existed? I have a scar on my left hand from dropping the H drawer on it. My library tattoo, if you will…) for Jewish books. There’s not a ton of fiction out there with a Jewish theme (beyond the hordes of Holocaust books, that is. Though there has been more non-Holocaust fiction lately, and I’m thankful for that!), so I was happy to stumble across Miss Jacobson’s Journey by Carola Dunn (Walker & Company, 1992). A historical romance with a Jewish bent? Sign me up!

Miriam’s parents want to marry her off, but she’s shocked by the pale, nerdy Torah scholar they’ve chosen for her and immediately proclaims her intentions to travel through Europe with her doctor uncle instead of marrying that guy, shocking everyone in the room and humiliating the young man. A decade later, her uncle has passed away and Miriam is stuck in France, thanks to the war between France and England. A deal struck with Jacob Rothschild to return her home teams her up with Isaac Cohen, a fellow Jew, and Felix, an antisemitic British aristocrat fallen on hard times. They’ll be smuggling some gold back into England on their long journey home, and the tension between the three- for various reasons- is enormous.

Difficulties befall the group constantly while traveling across France, and Miriam and the two men begin to work out their differences- kind of. She develops affections toward both of them, but in the end, she’ll have to make a choice- if they get home safely, that is.

Miss Jacobson’s Journey turned out to be a really entertaining read. Felix and other characters’ antisemitism was, obviously, unpleasant to read, but it was necessary to both further the plot and in order to be historically accurate. Historical fiction, oddly, can sometimes not age well, but despite having been published when I was twelve, this seemed just as fresh as though it were a new release. Carola Dunn’s voice reminded me distinctly of Tessa Dare, and this book was an enjoyable read the whole way through.

Miriam is a delightful character, headstrong and independent, curious about the inner workings of her religion/ethnicity that have been denied to her by dint of having been born female (it wasn’t considered proper for women to learn Torah back then and Miriam’s curiosity and Felix’s ignorance of anything Jewish make for interesting educational bits that help further the plot). Isaac is sweet and proper; Felix, while being a smarmy oaf, makes decent strides in becoming a better person. And journeying through France in the 18-teens made for a wonderful literary field trip while being stuck in the house due to freezing temps and Omicron.

Visit Carola Dunn’s website here.

fiction

Book Review: The Simplicity of Cider by Amy E. Reichert

Stephanie3 Comments

I’ve cleared out my email recently and have been back to reading the constant onslaught of emails from places like BookRiot. This, as you can imagine, is not great for my TBR! It was in one of those emails that I learned about The Simplicity of Cider by Amy E. Reichert (Gallery Books, 2017). I don’t often pick up a book solely because of its setting, but this one intrigued me because the story is set in Door County, Wisconsin. My mother and my kids and I visited Door County a few years ago, well before the pandemic, and we had an absolutely wonderful time, so I was looking forward to taking an armchair vacation back there (you can read about our trip- lots of pictures!- over at my other blog). Unfortunately, the book fell a little flat for me.

Sanna Lund’s family has been growing apples in their orchard in Door County, Wisconsin for five generations now. It’s just her father and her; her mother skipped out when she was six, and her brother decided farm life wasn’t for him and reacts with disdain to everything about the orchard. Sanna’s new venture, creating hard cider from the heirloom trees, is her obsession, but financially, things aren’t great; the orchard isn’t pulling in nearly enough money to make ends meet.

Enter Isaac; he’s come to Door County with his young son Bass. Bass’s mother died and Isaac isn’t sure how to tell him; instead, he’s trying to give Bass one last summer of being a carefree kid. Isaac takes a job at the orchard (putting Bass to work as well), and pretty soon the sparks are flying between him and Sanna. But trouble is brewing; trees are being damaged around the orchard- purposely- and Sanna’s brother is obsessed with trying to get her to sell the land to a waterpark developer. There’s a lot more to creating cider than just sitting around waiting for apples to grow, and the orchard will be in trouble if Sanna doesn’t figure out a way to save it.

The orchard itself made this a nice setting for the book, but I didn’t find much of the story that gave it a real Door County feel, likely because 95% of the book took place at the orchard or the house on the orchard where Sanna and her father lived. Other than a few mentions of how isolated the community becomes in the winter, especially during times of heavy snow, the book could have been set in an orchard in just about any state. While the setting was pleasant, it wasn’t quite what I was hoping for when I picked the book up; Sanna is an incredibly bitter character who doesn’t want much to do with the community around her, and her lack of community ties made her kind of…boring.

Isaac is a whole mess. His ex-wife was an addict who died of an overdose, and instead of telling his son, he hightails it out of the state, death certificate in hand (but without actually dealing with his ex-wife’s remains, as a phone call from his mother later makes clear), unsure of how to tell his son that Mom is dead. He’s immediately attracted to Sanna, although she’s so distant and crabby that it’s hard to understand why. I didn’t connect with their romance at all, and the mystery of who was vandalizing the orchard was solved in a kind of bizarre, out-of-the-blue manner.

This one had potential, but didn’t quite make it for me. It may be a me problem, that I didn’t quite connect with the book in the way I wanted; there’s no major issues with the writing, I just wasn’t feeling it. And that’s fine. Not every book is for every reader, and this wasn’t mine.

Visit Amy E. Reichert’s website here.

Follow her on Twitter here.

fiction · romance

Book Review: Love, Chai, and Other Four-Letter Words (Chai Masala Club #1) by Annika Sharma

Stephanie1 Comment

When someone mentioned Love, Chai, and Other Four-Letter Words (Chai Masala Club #1) by Annika Sharma (Sourcebooks Casablanca, 2021) on Twitter a few weeks ago, I immediately added it to my TBR (this is why I can’t get my TBR down any further, y’all!). I love books with characters who come from different cultures or sub-cultures than I do, and the premise of a series centered around a friend group whose members are all different versions of Indian (two are Indian American, one is British Indian, and another was born and raised in India but lives in America now) intrigued me. Seriously great Indian rep right there. There was a lot to enjoy here, but the story itself fell a little flat for me.

Kiran grew up in a small village in India, the daughter of parents who sacrificed her whole life so that she could be educated and successful. Her older sister Kirti was disowned after her wedding to a man from a lower caste; her village didn’t approve, and thus to avoid the shame it would bring on the family and the lessening of Kiran’s chances in life, the family banished her. Kiran has since become a successful engineer in New York City, but she’s weighted down by her responsibilities and her parents’ expectations.

Enter Nash, a blond psychologist who just moved to the city from- of course- Nashville. He’s Kiran’s new neighbor with family drama of his own, and as they strike up a friendship, Kiran feels like she might be falling in love for the first time. Which is big time not good, since Nash is white and American- definitely not on her parents’ approval list. Her friends are there for her when she struggles with her options, and there for her when her parents cast her away as well. It’s only when an emergency happens thousands of miles away that everyone learns the power of family, forgiveness, and love.

I loved the premise of this, the closeness of the friend group, and their diversity of experience (both in terms of work experience and life experience; so many different and beautiful connections to India); their support for Kiran and each other; their constant text messages; and the fact that there’s a GUY in this friend group! (I’m super curious as to what Akash’s love story will look like.) Kiran’s sense of duty to her parents, especially in the light of what happened with her older sister, is admirable; her struggle with that sense of duty is realistic and relatable. I did want her and Nash to work out as a couple, since she obviously loved him, and I was pulling for them.

Nash is…a little on the bland side, to be honest. For having a doctorate in psychology, he seemed deeply unaware of how to handle cultural differences and unable to fully grasp most situations from Kiran’s point of view. For someone so highly educated, I would have expected him to start delving deeply into some cultural studies and making an effort to understand what made Kiran the woman she is, where she came from and what life was and is like there, but nope, nothing. He just…fumbled here and there. Not exactly my ideal hero. And really, he has no excuse. Nashville, for its being a blue dot in a red (RED RED RED) sea, is a deeply multicultural city. I lived on the outskirts for five years and was constantly in Nashville proper, where my husband worked. There are multiple synagogues; a large Muslim population; a Somali community; and among many, many others, an Indian community. There are many excellent Indian restaurants in Nashville (two of my favorites were within walking distance of Vanderbilt, where Nash graduated from (and where my husband worked, so I’m intimately familiar with the area. He 100% would have known about them; they’re both really popular. I often say those two restaurants are the only thing I miss about living there). If Nash was as oblivious as he seemed, it wasn’t because he lived in Nashville and attended Vanderbilt University; he would’ve had to work pretty hard to avoid the cultural mosaic around him.

It felt to me as though the story went from cutesy-first-butterflies scene to Nash and Kiran admitting their feelings and ending up immediately in bed (all fade-to-black; zero open door scenes) very quickly; I never got a good sense of why they liked each other and had a hard time feeling much chemistry at all between the two. This may be because I didn’t feel like I connected with the writing style well, but I also felt that the writing itself lacked sparkle. Too much telling and not enough showing for me.

This was just okay; I had hoped for a little bit more, to be honest.

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